It Starts with Us: A Novel (2) (It Ends with Us)

It’s almost 9:30 at night, and I have no missed calls. Emerson has been asleep for an hour and a half, and she’s usually awake by six in the morning. I go to bed around ten because if I don’t get at least eight hours of sleep, I function at the capacity of a zombie. But if Atlas doesn’t call before ten, I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep at all. I’ll wonder if I should have apologized seventy more times for hiding him in a closet today.

I walk to the bathroom sink to start my nightly skin-care routine, and I take my phone with me. I’ve carried it with me every step since he showed up at lunchtime today and told me he’d call me tonight. I should have clarified what tonight meant.

To Atlas, tonight could mean eleven.

To me, it could mean eight.

We probably have two completely different definitions for what morning and night even mean. He’s a successful chef who gets home to unwind after midnight, and I’m in my pajamas by seven in the evening.

My phone makes a noise, but it isn’t a ringtone. It’s making a noise like someone is trying to FaceTime me.

Please don’t be Atlas.

I am not prepared for a video chat; I just put face scrub on. I look at the phone and sure enough, it’s him.

I answer it and quickly flip the phone around so that he can’t see me. I leave it on my sink while I speed up the cleansing process. “You asked if you could call me. This is a video chat.”

I hear him laugh. “I can’t see you.”

“Yeah, because I’m washing my face and getting ready for bed. You don’t need to see me.”

“Yes, I do, Lily.”

His voice makes my skin feel tingly. I flip the camera around and hold it up with an I told you so expression. My wet hair is still wrapped in a towel, I’m wearing a nightgown my grandmother probably used to own, and my face is still covered in green foam.

His smile is fluid and sexy. He’s sitting up in bed, wearing a white T-shirt, leaning against a black wooden headboard. The one time I went to his house, I never went into his bedroom. His wall is blue, like denim.

“This was definitely worth the decision to video-chat,” he says.

I set the phone back down, facing me this time, and finish rinsing. “Thanks for lunch today.” I don’t want to give him too much praise, but it was the best pasta I’ve ever had. And it was two hours old before I even had a chance to take a lunch break and eat it.

“You liked the why are you avoiding me pasta?”

“You know it was great.” I walk to my bed once I’m finished in the bathroom. I prop my phone on a pillow and lie on my side. “How was your day?”

“It was good,” he says, but he’s not very convincing with the way his voice drops on the word good.

I make a face to let him know I don’t believe him.

He looks away from the screen for a second, like he’s processing a thought. “It’s just one of those weeks, Lily. It’s better now, though.” His mouth curls into a slight grin, and it makes me smile, too.

I don’t even have to make small talk. I’d be happy just staring at him in complete silence for an hour.

“What’s your new restaurant called?” I already know it’s his last name, but I don’t want him to know I googled him.

“Corrigan’s.”

“Is it the same kind of food as Bib’s?”

“Sort of. It’s fine dining, but with an Italian-inspired menu.” He rolls onto his side, propping his phone on something so that he’s mirroring my position. It feels like old times when we’d stay up late chatting on my bed. “I don’t want to talk about me. How are you? How’s the floral business? What’s your daughter like?”

“That’s a lot of questions.”

“I have a lot more, but let’s start with those.”

“Okay. Well. I’m good. Exhausted most of the time, but I guess that’s what I get for being a business owner and a single mother.”

“You don’t look exhausted.”

I laugh. “Good lighting.”

“When does Emerson turn one?”

“On the eleventh. I’m going to cry; this first year went so fast.”

“I can’t get over how much she looks like you.”

“You think so?”

He nods, and then says, “But the flower shop is good? You’re happy there?”

I move my head from side to side and make a face. “It’s okay.”

“Why just okay?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m tired of it. Or tired in general. It’s a lot, and it’s tedious work for not very much financial return. I mean, I’m proud that it’s been successful and that I did it, but sometimes I daydream about working in a factory assembly line.”

“I can relate,” he says. “The idea of being able to go home and not think about your job is tempting.”

“Do you ever get bored of being a chef?”

“Every now and then. It’s why I opened Corrigan’s, honestly. I decided to take more of an ownership role and less of a chef role. I still cook several nights a week, but a lot of my time goes to keeping them both running on the business side.”

“Do you work crazy hours?”

“I do. But nothing I can’t work a date night around.”

That makes me smile. I fidget with my comforter, avoiding eye contact because I know I’m blushing. “Are you asking me out?”

“I am. Are you saying yes?”

“I can free up a night.”

We’re both smiling now. But then Atlas clears his throat, like he’s preparing for a caveat. “Can I ask you a difficult question?”

“Okay.” I try to hide my nerves over what he’s about to ask.

“Earlier today you mentioned your life was complicated. If this… us… becomes something, is it really going to be an issue for Ryle?”

I don’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“He doesn’t like you.”

“Me specifically or any guy you might potentially date?”

I scrunch up my nose. “You. Specifically you.”

“Because of the fight at my restaurant?”

“Because of a lot of things,” I admit. I roll onto my back and move my phone with me. “He blames most of our fights on you.” Atlas is clearly confused, so I elaborate without making things too uncomfortable. “Remember when we were teenagers and I used to write in my journal?”

“I do. Even though you never let me read anything.”

“Well, Ryle found the journals. And he read them. And he didn’t like what he read.”

Atlas sighs. “Lily, we were kids.”

“Jealousy doesn’t have an expiration date, apparently.”

Atlas presses his lips into a thin line for a moment, like he’s attempting to push down his frustration. “I really hate that you’re stressing over his potential reaction to things that haven’t even happened yet. But I get it. It’s the unfortunate position you’re in.” He looks at me reassuringly. “We’ll take it one step at a time, okay?”

“One very slow step at a time,” I suggest.

“Deal. Slow steps.” Atlas adjusts the pillow beneath his head. “I used to see you writing in those journals. I always wondered what you wrote about me. If you wrote about me.”

“Almost everything was about you.”

“Do you still have them?”

“Yeah, they’re in a box in my closet.”

Atlas sits up. “Read me something.”

“No. God, no.”

“Lily.”

He looks so hopeful and excited at the possibility, but I can’t read my teenage thoughts out loud to him over FaceTime. I’m growing red just thinking about it.

“Please?”

I cover my face with a hand. “No, don’t beg.” I’ll give in to those blue puppy-dog eyes if he doesn’t stop looking at me like he is.

He can see he’s wearing me down. “Lily, I have ached since I was a teenager to know what you thought of me. One paragraph. Just give me that much.”

How can I say no to that? I groan and toss the phone on the bed in defeat. “Give me two minutes.” I walk to my closet and pull down the box. I carry it over to my bed and begin flipping through the journals to find something that won’t embarrass me too much. “What do you want me to read? My retelling of our first kiss?”

“No, we’re going slow, remember?” He says that teasingly. “Start with something from the beginning.”

That’s much easier. I grab the first journal and flip through it until I find something that looks short and not too humiliating. “Do you remember the night I came to you crying because my parents were fighting?”

“I remember,” he says. He settles into his pillow and puts one arm behind his head.

I roll my eyes. “Get comfy while I mortify myself,” I mutter.

“It’s me, Lily. It’s us. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

His voice still has that same calming effect it’s always had. I sit cross-legged and hold the phone with one hand and my journal in the other, and I begin to read.

A few seconds later the back door opened and he looked behind me, then to the left and right of me. It wasn’t until he looked at my face that he saw I was crying.

“You okay?” he asked, stepping outside. I used my shirt to wipe away my tears, and noticed he came outside instead of inviting me in. I sat down on the porch step and he sat down next to me.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m just mad. Sometimes I cry when I get mad.”

He reached over and tucked my hair behind my ear. I liked it when he did that and I suddenly wasn’t nearly as mad anymore. Then he put his arm around me and pulled me to him so that my head was resting on his shoulder. I don’t know how he calmed me down without even talking, but he did. Some people just have a calming presence about them and he’s one of those people. Completely opposite of my father.

We sat like that for a while, until I saw my bedroom light turn on.

“You should go,” he whispered. We could both see my mom standing in my bedroom looking for me. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized what a perfect view he has of my bedroom.

As I walked back home, I tried to think about the entire time Atlas has been in that house. I tried to recall if I’d walked around after dark with the light on at night, because all I normally wear in my room at night is a T-shirt.

Here’s what’s crazy about that, Ellen: I was kind of hoping I had.

—Lily

Atlas isn’t smiling when I finish reading. He’s staring at me with a lot of feeling, and the heaviness in his eyes is making my chest tight.

“We were so young,” he says. His voice carries a little bit of ache in it.

“I know. Too young to deal with the stuff we dealt with. Especially you.”

Atlas isn’t looking at his phone anymore, but he’s moving his head in agreement. The mood has shifted, and I can tell he’s thinking about something else entirely. It brings me back to what he tried to brush off earlier when he said it’s been one of those weeks.

“What’s bothering you?”

His eyes return to his phone. He seems like he might brush it off again, but then he just sighs and readjusts himself so that he’s sitting higher up against his headboard. “Someone vandalized the restaurants.”

“Both of them?”

He nods. “Yeah, it started a few days ago.”

“You think it’s someone you know?”

“It’s not anyone I recognize, but the security footage wasn’t very clear. I haven’t reported it to the police yet.”

“Why haven’t you?”

His eyebrows furrow. “Whoever it is seems younger—maybe in their teens. I guess I’m worried they might be in a similar situation to the one I was in back then. Destitute.” The tension in his eyes eases a bit. “And what if they don’t have a Lily to save them?”

It takes a few seconds for what he says to register. When it does, I don’t smile. I swallow the lump in my throat, hoping he can’t see my internal reaction to that. It’s not the first time he’s mentioned I saved him back then, but every time he says it, I want to argue with him. I didn’t save him. All I did was fall in love with him.

I can see why I fell in love with him. What owner is more concerned about the situation of the person vandalizing their business than they are with the actual damage being done? “Considerate Atlas,” I whisper.

“What was that?” he says.

I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I slide a hand over the heat moving across my neck. “Nothing.”

Atlas clears his throat, leaning forward. A subtle smile materializes. “Back to your journal,” he says. “I wondered if you knew I could see into your bedroom window back then, because after that night, you left that light on a hell of a lot.”

I laugh, glad he’s lightening the mood. “You didn’t have a television. I wanted to give you something to watch.”

He groans. “Lily, you have to let me read the rest.”

“No.”

“You locked me in a closet today. Letting me read your journals would be a good way to apologize for that.”

“I thought you weren’t offended.”

“Maybe it’s a delayed offense.” He begins to nod slowly. “Yeah… starting to feel it now. I’m really offended.”

I’m laughing when Emmy begins to work up a cry across the hall. I sigh because I don’t want to hang up, but I’m also not the mom who can let her child cry it out. “Emmy’s waking up. I have to go. But you owe me a date.”

“Name the time,” he says.

“I’m off on Sundays, so a Saturday night might be good.”

“Tomorrow is Saturday,” he says. “But we’re going slow.”

“I mean… that’s pretty slow if we’re counting from the first day we met. That puts a lot of years between meeting you and going on a first date with you.”

“Six o’clock?”

I smile. “Six is perfect.”

As soon as I say that, Atlas squeezes his eyes shut for two seconds. “Wait. I can’t tomorrow. Shit. We’re hosting an event; they need me at the restaurant. Sunday?”

“I have Emmy Sunday. I’d rather wait before bringing her around you.”

“I get that,” Atlas says. “Next Saturday?”

“That’ll give me time to line up someone to watch her.”

Atlas grins. “It’s a date, then.” He stands up and begins walking through his bedroom. “You’re off on Sundays, right? Can I call you this Sunday?”

“When you say ‘call,’ do you mean video chat? I want to be prepared this time.”

“You couldn’t be unprepared if you tried,” he says. “And yes, it’ll be a FaceTime. Why would I waste time with a phone call when I can look at you?”

I like this flirty side of Atlas. I have to bite my bottom lip for two seconds in order to hold back my grin. “Goodnight, Atlas.”

“ ’Night, Lily.”

Even the way he makes such intense eye contact while saying goodbye makes my stomach flip. I end the call and press my face into my pillow. I squeal like I’m sixteen again.